The District's long-running gay weekly will resume publishing under its original name, the Washington Blade, at the end of this week, after the acquisition of the Blade's assets in bankruptcy court in Atlanta.

In late February, staffers bought the newspaper's name, copyright, trademark, archives, computers and office furniture for $15,000. Twenty-five thousand copies of the first edition of a redesigned Blade will hit the streets Friday.

"A lot of people really have an emotional connection to the Blade, and the outpouring since it closed was overwhelming and was really what led us to carry on," Naff says. "We'll be a leaner publication and we'll grow as we can afford to grow, but Friday's issue, as of now, is 56 pages, which is remarkable considering Agenda launched with eight pages."

The acquisition replants Blade ownership in the District under Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia Inc., which Naff, publisher Lynne Brown, sales executive Brian Pitts and other staffers formed in January to publish D.C. Agenda.

The Blade is currently renting office space at the Metro D.C. GLBT Community Center on 14th Street NW.

Plans are under way to find a more permanent newsroom headquarters, to restore 10 years of digital archives on www.washblade.com, and to find a suitable home for its print archives, which chronicle 40 years of the gay rights movement and are kept in two dozen filing cabinets.

The moniker "D.C. Agenda" will live on inside the Blade as the title of its arts and entertainment section.